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3 Things That Will Drive Mobile App Development in 2017

It is that time of year again when we all start returning to work after enjoying the holiday season. In the app development world, it is time to put last year’s projects to bed in anticipation of getting started on something new. It also means looking ahead to a few key things that will drive app development for the coming year. So what’s on tap for 2017?

Industry analysts have come up with a list of about a dozen different things that should all play a significant role in shaping mobile app development this year. iTexico and their team of Austin app developers are looking at three things in particular they expect to influence the industry:

1. Location-Based Services

Mobility has a built-in characteristic that business has not yet begun to fully develop. That characteristic is the ability to track the location of any mobile device on the planet. Under the right conditions, tracking could end up being the online marketer’s dream for 2017. Simply put, location-based services are expected to gain broad-based acceptance in multiple sectors, from entertainment to hospitality to information services. App developers will be asked to find new and creative ways to use location to market to people.

Greater use of location-based services will also lead to a greater use of wi-fi beacons for tracking purposes. The upside for end-users will be consistent data access without any additional strain being placed on mobile data plans. The downside is that the combination of location-based services and wi-fi beacons will create new security concerns for app developers.

2. Augmented Reality

Samsung and the makers of Pokémon Go both hit home runs with their contributions to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), respectively. Their successes have encouraged other tech companies to start heading down the VR and AR paths. This should mean good things for AR for 2017. If mobility is to achieve the same kind of acceptance the desktop earned for gaming and media in the past – and it almost has to, given the prevalence of mobility in modern society – app developers will have to put a lot more effort into VR and AR.

3. Artificial Intelligence

It is time for software developers to stop talking about artificial intelligence and start finding ways to make it a reality. That should happen in 2017. We have been working on artificial intelligence for decades now with only limited success, but 2016 saw a couple of seismic shifts in AI capabilities. The Prisma photo editing app is just one example.

Prisma is a Russian app that uses artificial intelligence and a neural network to rebuild images layer by layer after applying filters chosen by the user. The app has proved so popular that it was downloaded 7.5 million times in its first week alone. After one month, the app boasted 1 million active users.

It is clear that mobile users expect their devices to do things they have not been capable in the past. For app developers, that means finding new and better ways to use artificial intelligence. It also means improving AI so that it does a better job of mimicking critical thinking for every-day applications.

The Austin app developers at iTexico are gearing up for an exciting 2017 in the arena of mobile development. Along with their counterparts all over the country, they will be pushing our mobile devices to new and exciting frontiers with location-based services, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence. It is exciting to consider what mobility might look like by the time we turn the page on 2018.